Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Instrumentality of Wealth
The Instrumentality of Wealth
Feb 1, 2026 2:33 AM

Clement of Alexandria, Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?, trans. William Wilson, ch. XIV:

Riches, then, which benefit also our neighbours, are not to be thrown away. For they are possessions, inasmuch as they are possessed, and goods, inasmuch as they are useful and provided by God for the use of men; and they lie to our hand, and are put under our power, as material and instruments which are for good use to those who know the instrument. If you use it skilfully, it is skilful; if you are deficient in skill, it is affected by your want of skill, being itself destitute of blame. Such an instrument is wealth. Are you able to make a right use of it? It is subservient to righteousness. Does one make a wrong use of it? It is, on the other hand, a minister of wrong. For its nature is to be subservient, not to rule. That then which of itself has neither good nor evil, being blameless, ought not to be blamed; but that which has the power of using it well and ill, by reason of its possessing voluntary choice. And this is the mind and judgment of man, which has freedom in itself and self-determination in the treatment of what is assigned to it. So let no man destroy wealth, rather than the passions of the soul, which are patible with the better use of wealth. So that, ing virtuous and good, he may be able to make a good use of these riches. The renunciation, then, and selling of all possessions, is to be understood as spoken of the passions of the soul.

Wealth, like liberty, is not an ultimate end in itself. Wealth is the good product of a rightly ordered economic system. Liberty is the result of a properly functioning political structure. These are both penultimate realities.

But to what end are wealth and liberty (economics and politics) to be subsumed? I know no better answer than to say, “To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
What is Religious Freedom?
In its fullest and most robust sense, religion is the human person’s being in right relation to the divine, says Robert George, and all of us have a duty, in conscience, to seek the truth and to honor the freedom of all men and women everywhere to do the same: . . . the existential raising of religious questions, the honest identification of answers, and the fulfilling of what one sincerely believes to be one’s duties in the light of...
Should Christians Be Worried About Government Surveillance?
Ed Stetzter thinks so. In a Christianity Today article, Stetzer says our fundamental rights – rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights – are getting abused. He says alarm bells should be sounding among Christians, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Our Founding Fathers saw the Bill of Rights as providing barriers against government overreach and abuse. People (particularly people in governments with power) could not be trusted to have no checks on their power. Why? Well, some...
Why social mobility matters—and income inequality does not
When es to household e, progressives tend to start with their intuitive understanding of fairness (i.e., some people have a lot more e than others), move to the solution (redistribution of e and wealth from those who have more to those who have less), and only then to develop a metric that justifies implementing their solution: e inequality. Because of this roundabout approach, you rarely hear progressives argue that e inequality is a problem since for them it just is...
Federal Data Hub: Say Good-Bye To Your Privacy
Undoubtedly, we live in an era where personal privacy is difficult to maintain. Even if you choose not to have a Facebook account or Tweet madly, you still know that your medical records are on-line somewhere, that your bank account is only a hack away from being emptied, and that cell phone records are now apparently government domain. But it gets worse. Enter the Federal Data Hub, which will give the government access to “reams of personal piled by federal...
If You Live Here, You’ll Never Amount To Anything
A study out of Harvard University focusing on tax credits and other tax expenditures has caused 24/7 Wall St. to declare that America has 10 cities where the poor just can’t get rich. Among the reasons that economic upward mobility is so minimal in these cities: horrible public education (leading to high dropout rates) and being raised in single-mother households. What these cities share is an economic segregation: two distinct classes of people, with virtually nothing mon. However, it seems...
Grading Kids by Race?
In his famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. MLK decried equality for children of all races, and his monumental contribution to the realization of this dream should forever be remembered. However, it seems that some...
Work and the Political Economy of the Zombie Apocalypse
“Mmm…neoliberalism.” One of the more curious cultural movements in recent years has been the increasing interest in zombies, and in particular the dystopian visions of a world following the zombie apocalypse. Part of the fascination has to do, I think, with the value of thought experiments in speculation about such futures, however improbable. There may be something to be learned from gazing into a sort of fun house mirror, the distorted image of humanity as seen in zombies. But zombies...
Value Creation for the Glory of God
The real estate crisis led to plenty of finger-pointing and blame-shifting, but for Phoenix real estate developer Walter Crutchfield, it led to self-examination and spiritual reflection. “The real estate crash brought me to a place of stepping back and evaluating,” Crutchfield says. “I could see where I lost sight of the individual intrinsic value of work, of individuals, munity…Rather than asking ‘is the demand reasonable?,’ we just serviced it, and now we had a chance to think about what we...
For Europe’s Youth, an Attitude Adjustment is Required
Humility is probably one of the most difficult human virtues to achieve. For me, as a Hungarian intern at the Acton Institute, listening to Samuel Gregg’s June lecture in Grand Rapids on his new book, ing Europe about the Old Continent’s crisis is instructive. Relations between the United States and major European powers have been testy from time to time, of course, but Europe seems to lack self-criticism. Aging Europe, an unsustainable social model, a two-speed Europe: these are some...
Immigration: Amnesty and the Rule of Law
It is a moral right of man to work. Pursuing a vocation not only allows an individual to provide for himself or his family, it also brings human dignity to the individual. Each person was created with unique talents, and the provision of an environment in which he can use those gifts is paramount. As C. Neal Johnson, business professor at Hope International University and proponent of “Business as Mission,” says, “God is an incredibly creative individual, and He said...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved